The fauna in Bhutan can be deadly

Two blue tents for sleeping and the toilet tent perched near the edge. See the dog waiting in the road below?

Bugs love me. In 1971, I landed in the Middle East for the first time and about two million mosquitos zeroed in on me singing out Dinner is served.

Generally, I do my utmost to avoid the biters and stingers. Bug repellent and I are good friends. So much so that my mother predicted that my adult perfume would be a scent called Eau de Bug Spray. And it’s true that I wear more Rid than I do perfume.

Our overland travels always present certain challenges for me. If there’s a risk of mozzies at night, I cover up with long sleeves and long trousers. I also carry multiple bottles of Rid, Australia’s tropical strength +antiseptic insect repellent, that I roll on daily.

I managed very well during our 10 weeks in India even though were we camping at least half the time. Got maybe one or two bites a week.

But my guard was down in Bhutan. Good grief, it was freezing. It’s supposedly spring here, but I’ve been wearing closed shoes, woolly socks, long pants, three layers of merino tops, a beanie, gloves and a puffy jacket. Some nights the temperature has dipped to 2–3°C (or 35–37°F).

Surely there aren’t any mozzies about. But I forgot about fleas.

Every single campsite (we aren’t in actual campgrounds) has been overrun with dogs.

Having been bitten in 1986 by a dog that later became rabid, I have a personal travelling policy of not touching dogs I don’t know. Never mind how much I love dogs, I still remember the series of injections I needed back then.

So I have not honeyed up to these camp dogs. Nevertheless, they make themselves at home around the camp. All day they lie curled into tight balls, perking up when the dining tent shows some activity or as soon as the sun goes down.

Camp dogs sleeping off their night of barking. I assume the fleas are sleeping too

Nightfall brings on their barking frenzy. They race round and round our tents and weave back and forth across the campsite. Too late it dawned on me that their patrolling was also scattering fleas everywhere.

A swarm of those fleas found me. And based on where most of the bites are, it’s obvious that I was caught with my pants down, literally.

Our camps haven’t had a toilet, per se, but a toilet tent. That means a rectangular hole dug in the ground with a small tent set up over it. The dug-out soil is spread around the edge of the inside of the tent, so you can kick dirt over your ‘offering’. It’s functional, basic and your knees have to work.

The day of the flea attack, we were supposed to camp at a place called Chendipji, but the flat ground that was supposed to be used for camping had been taken over by a new stupa (those Buddhist monuments scattered all over Bhutan).

So the crew in the van carrying the main camping equipment had to drive on for many kilometres to find a place even remotely suitable for camping. Of course, after much searching they found a place that was ‘remotely suitable’ for camping.

The dining and kitchen tents were pitched beside the road. Our sleeping tents and the toilet tent were perched on a small cliff, which was home to a few dogs, and overlooked the other tents and a vast valley.

Poor John had pointed out some broken bits of glass on our cliff, and I had noticed that the toilet tent was rather close to the edge.

So about midnight when the bladder called, I opted for convenience and safety instead of stumbling toward the toilet tent. Around the back of my tent, I dropped my daks and had a quick pee, disturbing hundreds of ferocious fleas. They were quick, deadly and hungry.

Flea bites take forever to calm down, so six days later I’m still suffering. And I figured if I have to suffer, you can too, even if it is too much information.

Even cows drop by to check the toilet tent. Do they carry fleas too? The kitchen tent is in the right background. The hut in the middle is a shop (like a general store) and the building on the left is the shopkeeper’s house. We are camping (to the right and out of view) in an unplanted rice field